No business, in today’s competitive and technologically advanced environment, can move ahead in the right direction without automating some of its processes and tasks. It is the reason why software products available to automate business processes hold such immense significance across industries worldwide. And the demand isn’t expected to fizzle out anytime soon.
Now, there is a dilemma that all businesses looking to automate their processes have to face at some point. The dilemma is choosing between an off the shelf software solution and a bespoke software solution. Before making any decision, you should know that your business is different from all the other companies that you may have researched online to find out what they did when they had the same confusion. You can’t do what they did just because it worked out for them. You can collect information and learn lessons from them but don’t decide depending on what the majority of businesses that you study eventually did. The decision could backfire because it was taken looking at someone else and their needs. Whatever you choose to do should be based on your business needs and your growth objectives. Before discussing the reasons, let us first see what bespoke software is.
What is bespoke software?
In the simplest of terms, bespoke software is a type of software solution that is tailor-made for the specific needs of a business. The most important thing that you need to do to ensure that the end product is what you expected to be is to hire the right bespoke software development company in the UK. You can’t go wrong here. If you do, it won’t help your plans for future growth. When you choose the right bespoke software development services, you are assured that your software solution will fall in line with your requirements, which is unlike what you experience when you buy an off the commercial shelf solution.
Bespoke software is not created for the general public and doesn’t have a broader scope. It is only created to meet the needs of a particular business and its processes. While you can have an in-house developer to create bespoke software for you, it isn’t the most feasible of ways, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that have limited funds to spend. Hiring someone on a full-time basis is a substantial financial commitment that some startups and companies can’t afford to make. It is why hiring a bespoke software development company in the UK is the best bet for most businesses. It saves them the cost of hiring, training, benefits, and perks a full-time employee while allowing them to leverage the expertise of professional bespoke software development services at the same time. So you can get quality work done at a fraction of the cost.
Reasons to choose a bespoke software development
- Value and cost:The most important factor that almost every business considers is the cost associated with hiring a bespoke software development company. However, it wouldn’t be right to compare the prices of bespoke and ready-made solutions without bringing in their value offerings. That wouldn’t be a fair comparison. The cost of creating your answer is more than the cost of buying something readily available. However, the cost associated with developing a custom solution is only for the initial period. Now if you purchase something off the shelf, you won’t have to spend too much initially. But you would be required to pay for maintenance, upgrades, customisation, and support for as long as you use that solution.
- Development and deployment:Every product, whether bespoke or off the shelf, takes months or even years in development, testing, and refining. However, you don’t experience anything of that when you buy a ready-made solution. You get a solution only when it is available for purchase in the market. The things aren’t the same when it comes to bespoke software development. You experience everything first hand. You see the progress of your product right from scratch. You encounter all the pitfalls and learn to find ways to overcome them. You are a part of your product’s release. If you are looking to take a more comfortable way out, you should buy an off the shelf solution. However, if you want to gain experience in building a custom product, you should find yourself a bespoke software development company.
- Data security:Off the shelf solutions can’t be used without the consent of the software provider. Everything from cloud storage to servers will belong to the software provider. When you install such a solution, you run the risk of disclosing your confidential information to a third-party. With a bespoke solution, it is just your tea that has access to it. You are in complete control of what happens with your software, how it is used, and who all can access it.
Conclusion
In this post, we have discussed different reasons that make bespoke software a better choice than its off the shelf counterpart.
